so this is christmas...

Christmas is hard.
I may be on my road to recovery, but still I find the festive season a difficult one.
The forever calling christmas leftovers in the kitchen.
The over-indulgence, which we can be a part of, is a confusing feeling and concept for someone who has had an ed from their childhood.
The nostalgia, the thoughts of the new year and the past one, of christmases long ago and who was there, and who is now not here around the fire or in our lives.
Christmas is hard for me. Usually the new year is filled with determined desires of weight loss and numbers, numbers which then haunt my sleep and day dreams.
This new year is different. I know that these desires are not my own but my eds and I want my own dreams to emerge this year. Screw you ed.
But letting go of them old aims and numbers is hard, its like I sit here thinking 'what now? what then?'.
A life without an eating disorder- what a foreign concept for me.
As peter pan rightfully said -"to live would be an awfully big adventure".
A new adventure awaits me, and in these few days I am boxing up my ed and sending it back to where it came from.
This year I raise my glass and say - to living.
To living a free life.
To living with no chains around my body.
To living without confinement.
To living without isolation.
To living without constant tears, anger, frustration and pain.

I find it hard to box my ed up. Its like boxing a part of me, something I knew so long.
Its not part of me, I am myself. I am who I am.
Each box I tape I have a moments pause and a tear falls on the box, a sob sneaks from my mouth.
If I pause too long I cannot but cry, but I have the strength to carry on.
I asked Santa this year for freedom, yet I know this is a gift I have to give to myself.

To live would be an awfully big adventure.

xxx

exercise your mind

I just was exploring the internet and came across a phrase that I wanted to share.
"exercise your mind, not your eating disorder".

I think that phrase means so much and says a thousand words in just 7.
It is about exercising your mind, pushing your mind to new levels of wellbeing. Moving your energy to whats inside you, and helping your mind get healthy and fit.
Yet also not pushing it too much that you crash. Exercise is a word I despise. Yet in this context it makes sense. 
Its definition is as follows:
'Activity requiring physical effort, carried out esp. to sustain or improve health and fitness.'

Can't it be mental effort instead?
I think so. And I think that an hour of mental exercise is so important in recovery.
Time to devote to your mind, to challenge thoughts, to question routines and habits, to begin to make your mind healthy.
And it doesn't happen over night, it requires dedication and commitment, and that is what recovery needs too.
Recovery doesn't happen over night, neither does a six pack (you get what I am saying).
Take time, in moderation, to exercise your mind. Not your eating disorder. 


xxxx

So this is christmas....

Merry Christmas everyone.

This year, 2013, I can feel will be different. Not just for me, but for everyone.

I look back on the past year and see my falls, my grazes and bruises, but I also see my strength of getting up and carrying on.

2013 is full of so much positivity already:

- I am adopting my partners son. (hopefully, if all goes well).

- Stacy has a new, great job.

- I can really get into my PhD, meet mental health professionals and start making a difference.

- I have amazing friends, to name a few (as they deserve a medal) are Cheryl, Jane and Bekki. Beautiful people who I am blessed with.

- I am starting the new year on holiday in a cottage with my family <3

My new years resolutions are going to be different this year. They are the following:

- Carry on recovery- do NOT go into hospital this year! Maintain my weight. Maintain my good relationship with food. 

- Give up smoking (ahhhh).

- Start going to the spiritual church, and get in touch with the energies of the earth. 

- Meditate every day.

- Start exercising again,  in a healthy manner. That is going to yoga and classes rather than joining the gym.

- Tell those I love that I care for them as often as I can.

- Pass my viva.

- Teach Travis to swim <3

- Thank the earth for my body and what it does every day.

I am a firm believer there is more to life than just living. That sounds odd, but I really believe that death, spirits, the earth, energies, auras, I believe that they can teach us new things every day. I want to explore my own understanding of life this year, rather than to conform to one belief. explore my relationship with everything, and hope I will learn more about the world, others and myself.

I am so excited for this new year and all the adventures it will bring.

To live would be an awfully big adventure....

xxxx merry christmas xxxx

Its a wonderful life

I am so happy.
My life with the girl could not be more perfect, and our little boy is just so wonderful.
Things have fallen into place, and despite me trying to push it away earlier this year I have begun to accept I do deserve this.
I love her. I love my new house. Where I live... I have this thing about recovery and places.
Once I am ill in one place it continues to remind me of what I did, who I was, what the illness did to me.
And although I cannot run forever, moving to the countryside has given me freedom once again to re-invent myself. Not entirely, I like who I am. I do, not love, but like. But thats if I let myself be who I am, that is reading, writing, drawing, walking in the countryside, exploring, cooking, drinking wine and SMILING.
Today we went to the local christmas fair and I just felt content that this I where I live.
For once I feel I belong here. Maybe it is because it is the lesbian capital for the UK.... you wouldn't think so with how beautiful it is. Its set in the hillside, with a canal and river. And ducks (which I name, every single one). And there are other lesbian families here.
It reminds me that you can be who you want to be. But most importantly who you ARE, deep inside.
It shouldnt take a move to remind me this fact but it does.

I know that its the festive season, with so many challenges relating to mood and reflecting.
This year has been tough, one of the hardest of my life.
2 hospital admissions. A suicide attempt. Self-harm. Feeling lost.
But at the end of it I have this, and its a result of all of the above. All of the people who have been a part of the past year I cherish in one way or another, and I respect them. Although this year has been filled with a lot of upset, it has moved me and moulded me.

Next blog will be recovery focused. Talk of my inpatient treatment earlier this year.

Love to you all xxxx

And here I write...

So here I am. Sitting at a desk in a crowded place, and here I have a place of serenity. Where I can write, dream, whisper, scream, shout, and just simply be. Its pure, plain and simple and washes away all of the backdrop of my world.
For those of you who do not know me, I am sure you will soon find out that I am a fighter. I am fighting my eating disorder and my depression and this keyboard is just one avenue I have taken to beat this illness.
I do not state that this will be entirely positive as its my haven to write, but I promise you that I never stop believing in recovery, love and life.

Once upon a time I had a place to fall into. I hole which I could hide in. Now I feel that the ground is safe and the grass is for once green yet I am constantly looking for places to fall.
My life, for once, is perfect.
I have a house. A girlfriend. A son. My PhD. Amazing friends. An adorable kitten :)
Still, I feel a sense of disbelief and I feel I need to destroy all of the above as I don't deserve it.
Its a core belief of mine. That I am a bad person.

Earlier this year this thought got too strong and I begun my path of self-destruction, smashing my surroundings and crumbling into my ed and depression. I fell back into hospital, and all this happened in under a month.
But that is not a bad thing.
What I have learnt is that we often question our existence and our worth, but most of the time this is based on mere assumption. When I write the facts about my thoughts, my pen runs dry. I can't think of any, yet still I side with my thoughts. But they are just THOUGHTS.
I know people often think this. They often feel that things are too good for them, too amazing. They cant possibly receive them.

What would you say to that person? What would you say to me?
You would say that everyone deserves happiness and goodness. Everyone.

Blogging is something I am wary of, and I have always walked away from as from past experience people can be cruel and use their blogs to attack people. That will never happen here. Never. I will not delete people from my lives, or use my keyboard to hurt others. I admit, I type this as I am hurt by someone who has done this to me. And its something I need to say out loud as I don't like to let things upset me like that. Ahhhh dear, emotional day already. You know that pang of hurt you get for no reason about someone in your past? That happens to me so often, and I dread it each time.

I am off to my outpatients :) Off to my christmassy home to wrap presents by the fire. Ahhh I love the festive season!


MUCH love xxxx